


Stay With the High Lord

by WordsFromAsh



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: During the War, F/M, Light-Hearted, based off the idea that "stay with the high lord" could have meant rhys, post acomaf, the suriel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10424652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordsFromAsh/pseuds/WordsFromAsh
Summary: When Feyre and Rhys try to catch the Suriel for new information during the war, Feyre doesn't expect new revelations on some of the Suriel's older insights told to her.





	

“Are you sure this will work?” Rhys said and I could hear the caution but also poorly subdued excitement in his tone. It was endearing in a way, how much he wanted to catch a Suriel. It was like watching a child chase a butterfly all the while hoping it would land on them.

I dared to glance up at him from my balancing point on a flat, but wet rock. The stream we finally found was wider than I expected and I had no intention of falling in and getting my leathers soaked. I rocked back a bit for more momentum before I made the final jump onto the bank where Rhys waited. My bow and quiver of arrows bounced against my back and Rhys immediately grabbed to steady me.

I nodded my thanks to him and straightened up. “It’s our best bet,” I sighed. Stray hair hanging in my face floated up on my breath.

We needed information and it was an unspoken decision, really, that the Suriel was the lesser of two evils. I had no desire to return to the prison any time soon and I knew Rhys felt the same. Nor did I want to know what, if anything, the bone carver wanted from either Rhys or myself this time around.

Though I was undoubtedly pressing my luck with the Suriel, as well.

Rhys accepted the answer with a restless silence. His brows were drawn together as they had been since the start of our trek and he shifted the supplies he insisted upon carrying in his arm for a better grip.

“Look at it this way, I caught the Suriel and survived when I was not in the best mindset to be dealing with it while you were dying and—”

There was a pluck of smug pleasure at that down the bond that made me look at Rhys and immediately regret it. He had that infuriating smirk that was more feline than fae and his eyes lit up with satisfaction. “You were worried about me?”

Of course, I had been worried for him. Terrified that I was going to lose him in that cave. That I wouldn’t find the Suriel in time. That I wouldn’t make it back in time. Instead of admitting what he already knew, I rolled my eyes and said, “Don’t let it go to your head.” I gave him a light shove, but his arm anchored him to me, and I was glad he wasn't too stressed to joke.

We finally stopped at a tree on the edge of a clearing, closest to the stream should we need that escape and with a small cluster of trees we could hide in wait behind. It was the perfect set up for the trap. I grabbed the coil of rope from his arms and went about unwinding it and tossing it over a branch. “Anyway, as I was saying, I also caught it as a human. So, in theory, unless you’re just a jinx, then this should work.” I grinned at him, sly and teasing.

Rhys scoffed at the jab, but otherwise said nothing.

Cassian loved to remind him that I caught the Suriel while Rhys, the most powerful High Lord in Prythian’s history couldn’t. Never mind the fact that it went without saying that Cassian would probably never be able to catch one if he tried either. Nor the fact that this reminder never seemed to bother Rhys, who always delighted in flaunting when he could that his mate caught the Suriel not once, but twice.

Even now I could feel the emotions swell in our bond—pride, awe, admiration. I looked up to Rhys and all that I felt I saw reflected in his expression as he watched me work in my element. His eyes were trained on my hands tying the necessary knots for the noose and for the catch.

Sometimes I wondered though, what information was important enough to Rhys for him to risk his own life for it.

“What did it tell you anyway?” He said absently, pulling me away from my own thoughts. “It seems more like a busybody than anything else, telling you we were mates.”

I steadied him with a stare. “Don’t insult an ancient being we’re trying to catch and not be maimed by, please,” I stressed and pulled on the knot I was in the process of making. I gave it a second tug to make sure it would hold. Satisfied with the knot, I let it go. Satisfied that Rhys wasn’t going to come back with another remark that could get us killed, I answered his question. “It told me how to cure you and the whole mating thing. Before that,” I shrugged and stood. “it told me how Tamlin was a High Lord and not just some High Fae.”

Rhys’s admiration for my trap was replaced by an edge of amusement that was present in his tone as he said, “You mean he didn’t even tell you that? Even with the curse he should’ve been able to give you that much.”

I crossed my arms and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Like you’re one to talk.”

“I had—“

“Your reasons,” I finished along with him and fought back the smile that wanted to twitch into existence. I reached out a hand expectantly. “I know. Now give me the cloak.”

Rhys stepped over to me and passed off the soft silken cloak that felt like water against my skin. Brand new, just as Alis once told me. Expensive, too. Though that was more of a reassurance on my part.

“There were other things, too. I think I asked about the blight and it told me about Hybern. It also said not to leave the High Lord’s side and all would be well.” I snorted. “We saw how well that worked out.”

I arranged the cloak carefully over the trap while Rhys took the raw chicken out of the sack he had carried it in and placed it close to the cloak. “What do you mean?” he said and immediately wiped the blood and slipperiness off his hands with a subtle curl of his upper lip.

“I mean, it wasn’t long before you came and I was sent back over the wall. And then,” I flapped my hand to signify the mess that was Under the Mountain.

Rhys frowned and paused from wiping his hands. He stared at the chicken and cloak before he looked to me. “A part of me hoped for you to be sent back over the wall after that, you know. I didn’t know how close you were to breaking the curse, but I knew you were important. If the curse didn’t break, Tamlin would not have done anything once we returned to bring him to Amarantha. It was more than just me that retrieved him and if you had stayed I wouldn’t have been able to—“

He would’ve have been able to let me go.

I could have been strung up like Clare.

Things could have turned out much worse.

I sat a hand on his arm and he still looked so genuinely surprised by the small act of comfort over what he did before that it hurt. “I know,” I whispered. “But you were there when…” I trailed off, unable to finish when the words hit me by their full meaning for the first time.

He was there when I needed him. He had stayed with me even if I didn’t want him there at the time. Even if I hated him then.

And then it was Rhys holding me at my elbows. He leaned down to keep eyelevel with me, searching for what was wrong. His violet eyes were dark with worry and confusion under the furrow of his brow. “Feyre?”

I didn’t answer. My mind was still spinning everything together.

The Suriel hadn’t been wrong. This whole time I thought I had messed everything up from the moment I left Prythian and returned to my sisters. That if I had just stayed with Tamlin and told him I loved him then everything would have been fine. Curse broken. Maybe it would have been for Prythian, but for me?

“Stay with the High Lord,” I repeated. I could hear the Suriel saying the similar words from all that time ago. It seemed like another lifetime now. I swallowed, my throat thick. Even from the very beginning it was—“You. The Suriel meant you, Rhys. Stay with the High Lord. Back then, I thought it meant Tamlin, but it was you.”

It was by staying with Rhys that I had survived Under the Mountain. It was by staying with Rhys that I survived my own self. It was by staying with Rhys that I was still here and, despite the war, happy.

“It was always you,” I said. Even when I didn’t know it. A smile broke across my face. My fingers curled around Rhys’s arm and his grip tightened on me in response. Slowly but surely, he shared my same grin as the realization settled with him as well.

“I see my insights are not wasted on you, High Lady.”

Rhys spun around and I looked over his shoulder to where the Suriel stood just as I remembered it. It even wore the cloak I had offered it the last time, though the cloak was worn and dirty, already tattered along some of the hem. It was the same Suriel as the previous times, though, and I didn’t know whether that was a good or bad sign.

“And you brought your High Lord as well.” The Suriel cocked its head. Those long, thin fingers tapped against each other and I refrained from shivering at the sound. It sounded like a promise of death and bones should we step out of line.

I couldn't look away from it. The first catch I’d been spared out of the need for its survival. The second time was surely as repayment. But this time, I had not caught the Suriel. It stood free in front of us and could do as it liked.

It turned to Rhys and I thought I saw its lipless mouth curl into something that was supposed to be along the lines of a smile. It made my stomach churn looking at those too long teeth and blackened gums. It made me nervous that it looked to Rhys in general. “It appears I was right and you would not need me to answer about your mate after all,” it said. “Or on how to defeat Amarantha. Your answers found you instead.”

My neck popped in several places I turned to look at Rhys so quickly. All thoughts of keeping an eye on the Suriel gone. He had tried to catch the Suriel to defeat Amarantha and to find me while I was quite likely nothing more than a fuzzy dream to him. He did not just risk his life against this ancient creature, but against Amarantha as well.

I could only see Rhys’s profile, but he kept an indifferent mask on, the same he wore every time he paraded as the High Lord of the Night Court. His voice was just as collected as he drawled, “It appears so.”

I wanted to reach out for Rhys's hand, but stopped myself, afraid that any movement would provoke the Suriel into action. I didn't even reach for my bow.

Then the Suriel did move.

My muscles tensed.

Rhys swore.

And it stopped before us. My snare laid out between it and us, a completely worthless thing now that the Suriel no doubt knew it was there as it looked down at the chicken and cloak. “It seems like that is not enough for you,” it rasped. “You still want to ask more.”

The Suriel reached down and grabbed the cloak.

I looked over to Rhys and he looked to me as the Suriel inspected it. He had the centuries of knowledge and I had the experience, but neither of us knew what to do right now. Especially not when the Suriel finally draped the cloak over it's thin arm, that eerie mockery of a grin back on its face of bone, and said: “So tell me High Lord and High Lady, what do you wish to know this time?”


End file.
